Every week I write and article for the Euro Weekly News, an English-speaking newspaper covering all the major resorts of Spain and the Balearics. You can pick up a copy on a Thursday ... or read it here every week. |
Thursday 2 November 2006
Did not all our hearts go out this week to those involved in this most recent of Greek tragedies. At least the little tots who died on the island of Corfu were mercifully spared the almost unbelievably tragic aftermath of this sad affair. It is to the survivors our thoughts turn at this time. To the partner, with whom another woman had entrusted her offspring's. To the mother, thinking her children were enjoying a wonderful holiday and then receiving a call telling her they were both dead. But most of all to the Father. To go to sleep in your holiday hotel room and wake up in a strange foreign hospital is bad enough. But to be then informed that your children are dead, conjures a scenario that simply defies the imagination. Amazing how our piddly problems pale, in the light of the others so far worse off than we. Let us all hope and pray these sad victims somehow come through their horrendous ordeal relatively intact. We wish them strength to negotiate a road none of us would want to travel, even in our worst of nightmares, and the love of those around to help them through a journey in which time is the only healer. This brings me to negligence. If this tragedy could have been averted in any way then those who failed to do so must be brought to book, and brought to book hard. Unfortunately Greece is a little like Spain was some 25 years ago, very little safety regulations, building standards appalling, a complete disregard for the safety and well being of their holiday guests and the greed factor overriding all. Thank God Spain has been caring and intelligent enough to rectify these problems over the last quarter century, and through the years introduced legislation and safety standards to ensure tragedies of this sort only happen here on extremely rare occasions. Having said that, people are still falling from balconies with monotonous regularity. Another the other day ensures that yet again one family will be receiving their young son home in a box, instead of festooned with holiday apparel and happy stories of his Spanish sojourn. Come on you 'powers' out there, try and forget you went to school with the proprietors of that chain of holiday accommodation and get 'em to lay out a few bob raising the height of their balconies, wouldn't you like to save a few lives next year - what price that? One subject I have been denied this year, I'm delighted to say, is my annual (no pun intended) gripe at 'Uncle Juan's' bookmaking factory. In the Calvia area of Mallorca at least, the local council have reimbursed almost all the money laid out by beleaguered parents in the purchase of school books for the coming year. This has meant a tremendous saving for most of us. My overall out lay for three children was over 350 euros! All power to you Senor Delgado. Let's hope other councils take up the idea and the voters bear this, and your parties many other achievements in mind at next year's local elections. So, with the news that they have now grown a human liver the size of a penny, that a mere half a million will buy you a trip in space, you can now buy a diamond encrusted mobile phone for fifty grand and there are still millions of children dying of starvation and poverty across the world, I'll leave you for another seven. I shall be commencing my winter season in Benidorm on the 9th or 10th of this month so slings and arrows should be cast in that direction. 'El Booko' is still available at Peter Carols and The Bookworm in Mallorca and I shall of course be 'carrying' when I am in Benidorm. Congratulations to Robert Winsor O.B.E. and his delectable partner Marie on the magnificent array of special buses, chairs, equipment and donations to the less fortunate children of Mallorca, and beyond - all paid for by this year's hugely successful Celebrity golf tournament. A glass of the amber to you all and to the next year's event, assuming all involved survive the pace! And so it's goodbye from him, and goodbye from him. See you in Benidorm or other far flung places, don't forget to tune in to 'Buzzcocks' on the 9th , enjoy the week, keep a civil tongue in yer cheek and whatever ya do. Always keep the faith. Love Leapy |
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